The good news for Chinese human rights activists this week is that Liu Xia, widow of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, was finally released after eight years of completely unjustified house arrest and allowed to leave China. The bad news is that China is still controlling her by keeping her brother as a hostage.

Hong Kong held a huge candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on Monday to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The event displeases Beijing, which has done what it can to suppress attendance and warn participants away from incendiary criticism of the Communist government.

Li Wenzu’s sixty-mile march to demand answers about the fate of her imprisoned husband Wang Quanzhang was cut short on Tuesday, as she was scooped up by plainclothes police and deposited back at her home under house arrest. Meanwhile, China once again postponed discussions to allow Liu Xia, wife of the late dissident and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, to emigrate to a free country. Liu Xia has effectively been under house arrest for eight years and counting.

Instances of Winnie the Pooh censorship were reported this weekend on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, while a series of Winnie the Pooh-themed stickers were removed from the instant messaging service WeChat.

A column in the Chinese state-run Global Times has denounced anti-communist dissidents as “losers” for condemning China’s treatment of Liu Xiaobo, its only Nobel Peace Prize winner, and warned that Liu’s death proves all defiance of the Communist Party “only end in failure.”

The Chinese government worked very hard to erase the existence of Nobel Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo, making it a criminal offense merely to mention his name. Nevertheless, Chinese citizens are finding clever ways to dodge the Beijing Internet police, celebrating the life of the famed democracy activist and mourning his death in custody this week.

2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died in Chinese custody at age 61 on Thursday, reportedly of multiple organ failure due to liver cancer. His treatment is a devastating indictment of China’s human rights abuses and should bring increased international attention to how the authoritarian regime in Beijing silences dissenters.

Communist China isn’t happy with Ted Cruz. For months, Cruz has been proposing legislation that “would rename a part of the street across from China’s embassy after a pro-democracy activist,” Liu Xiaobo. Xiaobo was arrested in China in 2008 after authoring a Pro-Democracy, Pro-Human Rights manifesto, and is the only Nobel laureate in prison today.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted China’s human rights record and asked for unanimous consent to rename the plaza in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. as “Liu Xiaobo Plaza,” after the Nobel Peace Prize winner imprisoned on charges of inciting state subversion.